Talk:Paradox
The Clara Clayton Paradox In Back to the Future III, Doc Brown and Marty are in the cemetary and encounter Doc Brown's tombstone which reads "Here lies Doc Emerett Brown...shot in the back by Mad Dog Tannen over a matter of 80 dollars...In loving memory of his beloved Clara". This suggest that Doc Brown met and knew Clara Clayton all the way up until the time he was killed. However, when Marty goes back to 1885 to rescue Doc, we soon learn through Marty that Clara was a school teacher who fell into into Shonash Revine in 1885, when her horses where spooked by a snake, hence the name was of revine was changed to "Clayton Revine". (COMMENT: Marty only remembered that Clayton Ravine was named for a teacher who fell into the ravine -- how she fell, whether by buckboard or suicide, was not part of the tale that was passed down among the students. --Western Union) We then see that Clara was be to avoid her destined fall into the revine and sure death, due to the heroics of Doc Brown, who happen to be nearby to investigate the revine for the plan for the trip back to 1985. Doc was able to chase down the frightened horses and stop them just before they careened over the cliff, hence saving Clara's life and causing a paradox in time. Hadn't Marty and Doc been nearby to investigating the revine for the time travel back to 1985, they would have never have ran into Clara, hence history would have resumed as planned and Clara would have fallen into the revine. But the tombstone found in 1955 by Doc and Marty suggests that either Clara didn't die at that point in time, and that Marty's time travel back to 1885 somehow altered the course of time thereby making the event happen earlier, or that for some unknown reason, Doc just happened to be near the revine by himself and was able to Rescue Clara from her death fall. Then she managed to fall off of the cliff on her own sometime after Doc Brown was killed by Mad Dog Tannen. *Yes this is an example of the paradox. I'm going to be bold and add it to the article, which you have done as well. -- Riffsyphon1024 05:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC) **No, I don't think this is an example of a paradox. As Marty tells Doc, the worst that can happen is they don't name the ravine after her. When Marty ran over Peabody's pine tree changing the name of the Twin Pines Mall, this did not cause a paradox either. As the Bobs explained the Clayton/Shonash Ravine name change in the BTTF FAQ it only created an alternate but equally consistent timeline. A paradox occurs if one of the time travellers had been killed/shocked/delayed, preventing them from going back in time to do something that created this timeline, and there is no consistent alternate timeline possible. Western Union 06:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC) I'll attempt to simplify this: Before Doc Brown arrived in 1885 - Clara Clayton falls down the ravine and it's named after her. After Doc Brown arrived in 1885 - Doc Brown picks Clara Clayton up (as he agreed to in th town meeting) and she arrives safely, which would explain why Doc Brown gravestone was dedicated to his "beloved Clara". After Doc Brown arrived in 1885 and Marty arrived a day after he wrote the letter he recieved shortly after the Delorean was struck by lightning - Doc Brown sees the photo of his gravestone and decides not to pick her up, but ends up saving her anyway as he was nearby where she would've fell to her death, had he not been there. Vae Infectus 20:54, January 18, 2011 (UTC) Actually, the worst thing that could happen is Clara getting married and having kids (Marty did not consider this, but after Doc was saved, the two time anomalies (Doc and Clara) were presumably married and confirmed to have at least two kids), as that would result in several persons who were never meant to be born, similar to BTTF:The Game's paradox of Biff having two brothers after Kid Tannen is saved from going to jail. Dann494 13:52, March 27, 2012 (UTC) Prevented Clock Tower Paradox (BTTF 1) Originally, Doc in 1955 had affixed a lightning rod to the tower. The lightning would never have hit the clock itself; it would have kept ticking, and there'd be no need for the Hill Valley Preservation Society to exist at all, therefore no flier handed out to Marty, therefore no knowledge of the lightning strike. It was only because of the cable accidentally being detached that Doc was forced to put the wires on the clock hands, thus making the lightning hit the clock and damage it. A case for the theory of self-preserving time (mentioned in the official BTTF FAQ), I think. -- 14:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC) Alternate timelines? I'm not saying this solves all (or any) of the paradoxes, but it seems like they're operating under the impression that Marty and Doc are always within the same timeline/universe (like one world in the whole "infinite parallel worlds" idea). But in BTTF II, Doc Brown himself is the one that explains the dystopian 1985 to Marty as a alternate timeline. If we assumed that his theory was correct, then all of their time travel would set them upon alternate timelines, just ones that are very, very similar to the original that's familiar with them. Ex: The Tombstone Paradox: The paradox here is that Marty needs to see the tombstone to know to save Doc, and once he does save him, it means he would never have known to save Doc. However, if, once he did save Doc and after the many struggles with the train manage to send Marty to 1985, it would be a timeline where Doc would not have needed to be saved, I have the idea in my head but it might be coming out wrong, so tell me if I'm being unclear. Did that make any sense? *I think it all depends on one's point of view. From Marty and Doc, those alternate timelines are just that, alternate, whereas to everyone else they are reality, even if they think something is different. In fact, anytime that they insert themselves into a time that is not their own, they effectively change history just by being there, creating a new timeline. I have another approach that might help this idea. Say there was a speck of dust on the DeLorean that traveled along with the time machine into 1885. That speck of dust floated off the machine and away into the air. Suppose that speck of dust then became the seed for a rock, that by 1985, was hardened enough and large enough to roll down a hill and cause some damage. Had that speck of dust not been there, would that rock have formed and rolled away 100 years later? Just a thought. As for the tombstone paradox, let's say that Doc's establishment of a tombstone upon his death represented a fixed point in time, and so that tombstone would have been there to come across whether it was 1955 or 1985, but for Marty to see, and Marty would have still gone back to save him regardless of the year. Only upon defeating Buford did the tombstone disappear completely. Now if Doc (1955) went back to Boot Hill Cemetery he would not find the tombstone, but it had to be there for Marty. Making sense? -- Riffsyphon1024 22:36, January 11, 2011 (UTC) *This is the ultimate paradox of all time travel movies in which someone goes back in time to rescue someone who sent a message from the past. After completing the rescue and returning to the present, he is in a timeline where there was no need for him to visit the past http://www.multiverser.org/time/back3.html, yet at the conclusion of the movie, Marty ends up with a photo of himself and Doc in 1885. Since Marty's last jump forward is to 1985, not 1955, we don't know what happened in 1955 to make him go back to 1885 instead of to 1985 to destroy the time machine, per Doc's instructions. Perhaps in Nature's effort to prevent paradoxes whenever possible, something miraculous happens to resolve this timeline, which is up to your imagination. You could speculate, for example, that Marty didn't see Doc's tombstone and actually intended to go back to 1985 at the drive-in theater, but the glitch in the time circuits that causes them to revert to Jan. 1, 1885 never got fixed and happened a third time while Marty drove toward the screen. Marty was accidentally sent to 1885, and was there to save Doc's life at the festival. Western Union 19:04, January 18, 2011 (UTC) **That, Western, is heavy. ;) -- Riffsyphon1024 20:19, March 30, 2011 (UTC) I think "Clocktower Paradox" should be taken off of here. In Timeline 2 onwards, that huge lightning bolt did damage that clock and cause it to be stopped at 10:04 forever exactly the way it had in the original timeline, experiment or no experiment. I don't think the cables Doc connected made the lightning get directed away from the clock at all. And even if it was directed away, considering how large that bolt was, it's not unlogical to believe the lightning still stopped the clock. This is how the lightning traveled: it slammed into the rod on top of the building, moved right through the clock to make it stop working, THEN entered the cables and lastly the flux capacitor. So I don't think a Paradox is here at all. And I'm pretty sure most would agree with me in terms of the way the Lightning traveled, which is why once again someone should delete "Clocktower Paradox".